


Playing to Lose

by error404_happinessnotfound



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Musicians, Piano
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-25 23:23:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17130662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/error404_happinessnotfound/pseuds/error404_happinessnotfound
Summary: "Are you okay?""I'm fine."But he's not.***Jooheon knows that something is wrong with his roommate, Hyungwon.





	Playing to Lose

The door clicked shut softly, as if in reluctance. Jooheon looked up from his spot on the couch to take in his lanky roommate.

"Hey," Jooheon greeted. He'd known Hyungwon for several years as a friend-of-a-friend. Changkyun had introduced them at some point, and they'd gotten along fine. They weren't very personal, but when they had found out they were going to be attending the same college, they'd chosen to room together. Now, two years later, they were close enough to greet each other, close enough to go out for drinks together, close enough to ask how the other was - but not close enough to answer honestly.

Hyungwon didn't respond, walking over to the kitchen and dropping his bag on the table.

Jooheon hesitated before pausing the TV. "Everything okay?" he asked, trying to sound casual. Even asking felt like some sort of violation of their unspoken agreement. They were friendly, but that didn't mean they were friends.

Hyungwon stilled. He was still standing by the kitchen table, his back to Jooheon. His muscles were tensed, his fingertips digging into the table as though they were the only things holding him up.

"Hyungwon?" Jooheon tried again, slowly getting to his feet. He felt torn between walking over to Hyungwon and keeping the distance between them. In the end, he didn't move. "Is everything all right?"

"It's fine," Hyungwon said after a moment. His voice was lower than normal, but Jooheon couldn't tell if he sounded hurt or angry or...he didn't know what.

Jooheon bit his lip. He'd already asked twice, and he knew that if he second-guessed Hyungwon's answer, he'd be breaking the rules of the relationship they had. "Yeah, okay," he said after a moment, sitting back down on the couch, but he didn't lean back into the cushions as he'd been doing before. Instead, he stayed firmly upright, his back straight, waiting for Hyungwon to give him some - any - indication that he needed to talk.

But he didn't. He got a glass of water and two pain relief pills and disappeared into his bedroom.

That was the first time Jooheon had questioned their impersonal relationship.

***

The door slammed shut, and Jooheon bolted up from his sleeping position on the couch, groaning softly as he pressed two fingers to his forehead. "Hyungwon, can you-" He began, about to ask Hyungwon to be more considerate when he saw the state of his roommate.

Hyungwon's face was darkly tinted, his eyes cold, his hands shaking. He threw his bag on the table and strode to the medicine cabinet, grabbing the bottle of pain relief pills and staring at them before slamming them back into their place and shutting the cabinet without taking any.

"Uh, Hyungwon?" Jooheon asked, and Hyungwon paused, looking over at Jooheon.

"Yes?"

Jooheon thought that if there were a good time to ask him what was going on, it would be now, but as he opened his mouth, he sank further into the couch. "Um, could you...could you not slam things? I was sleeping..." Immediately after voicing his thoughts, he clenched his jaw, frustrated with himself for not saying what he meant. He wanted to ask if Hyungwon was okay (he wasn't), he wanted to ask if Hyungwon wanted to talk about it (he didn't), he wanted to ask if Hyungwon needed some company to distract him (he didn't). But he couldn't bring himself to ask a single one.

Hyungwon stiffened before bowing slightly so Jooheon couldn't see the look in his eyes. "I'm sorry. I was inconsiderate."

Jooheon sat up, shocked to see Hyungwon bowing and apologizing. "It's fine-"

Hyungwon tightened his lips in a grimace, not meeting Jooheon's eyes, before he went into his room, shutting the door.

Jooheon hesitated before standing up and walking over to the bag Hyungwon had left on the table, intending to bring it to him, only he stopped once he saw what was spilling out.

Sheet music. Pages and pages of it, hundreds of notes sprawling across the pristine pages, accompanied by small handwritten notes.

_Add pedal here_

_Bring out LH_

_Color???_

_Focus on_ _articulations_

The last note had been underlined several times, the intensity of the lines increasing as though scribbled in a moment of frustration. And though Hyungwon's name wasn't written on any of them, Jooheon recognized his handwriting well enough.

He'd never known that Hyungwon was a musician. They'd never really talked about themselves.

Jooheon wanted to change that.

***

The door opened and didn't shut. Jooheon looked up to see Hyungwon's hand gripping the door, holding it in place so he could lean his forehead against it.

Jooheon knew that if he asked questions, he would get non-answers.  _I'm fine_ and  _I don't need help._ So Jooheon didn't ask questions.

"You're not okay," Jooheon said, and Hyungwon didn't move. His bag slipped off his shoulder, hitting the floor. Sheets spilled into the hallway, covering the floor in a layer of music.

Jooheon thought it looked beautiful.

He got up and walked over to Hyungwon, stepping delicately over the music. It felt almost sacrilegious for his socked feet to come into contact with them, but he had no other choice if he wanted to get to Hyungwon. Still, he trod lightly until he was within reach of the taller boy. "You're not okay," Jooheon repeated, watching as Hyungwon's eyes fluttered shut. He squeezed them as though trying to block out the sound of Jooheon's words, of his concern.

"You're not okay." A third time, whether Hyungwon was listening or not. Jooheon wanted him to know that he wasn't going to just let him disappear into his room again to cry by himself or sit in pain or do whatever he did on these days.

"No," Hyungwon finally whispered, tension clear in his face, his eyes still shut, forehead still braced against the open door. "I don't think I am."

"Let me help you," Jooheon insisted, and when Hyungwon didn't respond, he put a hand on Hyungwon's back, guiding him away from the door before closing it softly. Then he led Hyungwon into the living room, seating him on the couch. Hyungwon never once looked at the music, and it wasn't that he didn't notice.

"Tell me," Jooheon said. "Tell me what's wrong."

Hyungwon leaned forward, his hands clasped over his knees, his shoulders hunched. "You do something your whole life," he said, his voice low and shaky. "And everybody tells you you're good at it, that you should keep doing it. And so you do. You like it enough, but other people like it for you more. And then suddenly, it's all you know, and you don't know why you're doing it or who you're doing it for anymore but you're doing it, aren't you? Maybe you like it. It doesn't really matter, though. You keep doing it and you think that's all there is for you,  _to_ you, that you'll always be doing it, only-"

He cut off, shutting his eyes, and Jooheon put a hand on his knee, squeezing gently. "What's this about, Hyungwon?"

His eyes fluttered open, going to Jooheon's hand before staring unfocused into the kitchen. Jooheon knew that he should remove his hand, but he didn't. "I've been playing piano for fifteen years. I would practice for an hour every day, then two hours, then three...I've been trained for it my whole life. Everything was always about piano. My parents only encouraged it, getting me better instructors, telling me to practice even more. That I would get a scholarship and become a classical pianist."

"Is that what you wanted to do?" Jooheon asked.

Hyungwon didn't respond to his question. "So I came here to study piano further, and a while ago, my professor told me...he told me that if I kept playing the way I was, then I'd end up hurting myself. And he said the same thing a few weeks ago, and today..."

"What did he say today?" Jooheon asked, rubbing Hyungwon's back. It worried him, seeing Hyungwon this way. He'd never talked about the piano at all, much less how it made him feel.

"He said that I have a choice: give up piano, or..."

"Or what?"

"Or play until I permanently damage my arms."

Jooheon squeezed Hyungwon's knee once more to remind him that he was there, that he wanted to support Hyungwon. He didn't have the words to make it all right, to make everything okay. To focus on something for a decade and a half only to be told that all that time had been wasted... Jooheon wasn't sure that there  _were_ words to make it all right.

Sometimes, things just weren't okay, and that was...okay.

"So what are you going to do?" Jooheon asked, his eyes tracing the scattered sheet music in the hallway. Hours and hours of work, thrown and tossed about. He couldn't imagine Hyungwon just giving all that up, not if it was all he knew. "Are you going to keep playing anyway?"

"That's the thing," Hyungwon said, his voice softer than before. "If I love the piano - if I truly loved playing - I'd say yes, wouldn't I? That I don't care how much it'll hurt, that I'll do anything to just play for one more day?"

Jooheon was silent.

"Because otherwise, it was all a lie," Hyungwon whispered. "If I give up here- then doesn't that mean that I never loved it at all? Then what was it all for? Who was I doing it for? What was I trying to accomplish? If I'm not a pianist, then what am I?  _Who_ am I?"

Jooheon brought his hand from Hyungwon's knee to the top of his head, patting lightly. "You're Hyungwon," Jooheon said, a small smile on his face. "Just Hyungwon."

Hyungwon looked over at Jooheon, meeting his eyes for the first time. "Just Hyungwon..." He bit his bottom lip, rolling it inward. "Is that...is that enough?"

"It is for me."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> Please support my search for happiness: ko-fi.com/nobodyimportant


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